


Caught(Between Memory and Fantasy)

by valiantprincex



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, hint of abortion if that's an issue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 05:49:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2097975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valiantprincex/pseuds/valiantprincex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sarah Manning can't shake her past and can't see her future. Set post-series/AU/post-AU, take your pick. Sarah + Motherhood.</p><p>        <em>Mother. Mother. Hardly ever Father, though Sarah never stopped long enough to wonder why. She used to turn the word over in her mind, over, over, over through the years, turning it in every permutation, every possible meaning of the word. She would lay awake, staring at yet another unfamiliar ceiling and wonder in a way that ripped her soul apart, over and over and over again. </em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Caught(Between Memory and Fantasy)

**Author's Note:**

> Sarah Manning + motherhood is so compelling for me

        Mother.  _Mother_ . Hardly ever Father, though Sarah never stopped long enough to wonder why. She used to turn the word over in her mind, over, over, over through the years, turning it in every permutation, every possible meaning of the word. 

        She would lay awake, staring at yet another unfamiliar ceiling and wonder in a way that ripped her soul apart, over and over and over again. She used to wonder  _why_ in a way that made her shake and cry, biting her lip to stop the sobs from escaping. She stopped crying, eventually, and her pain congealed into something deeper and darker; into anger that boiled at the bottom of her soul. Sarah whirled through life after that, her anger a crutch, an addiction, a veil through which she viewed the world.

She didn’t want wonder anymore. She wanted to demand.

        To find _Mother_ and rip the answer of why from her chest, hands wet with blood. She wanted to punish, to scream _“I’m broken, I’m broken, you broke me, why why why”_   she wanted to show _Mother_ this pain and anger that she horded inside her, make _Mother_ know how broken she is. Sarah wanted all this and more, and she still couldn’t help but feel a clench of sadness when seeing a pregnant woman, a mother with a young child. How. Nine months. _Nine months_. Sarah wanted, ached to know if during those months her _Mother_ dreaded every minute, or if some unforeseen circumstance ripped them apart.

        She hid these questions under an armor made of cuts and bruises, lies and anger. Hid them so deep that she could never dare utter them aloud. She thinks later, thinks long enough  _after_ that her thoughts run clear as crystal, thinks maybe this is why Felix and her were so drawn to each other. The scars they shared were enough to bond them stronger than blood ever could. 

        She remembers how his eyes were so full of pain that mirrored her own, remembers how she  _needed_ so much when there was no one there to give. They never spoke about it, not seriously, never with the intention of _meaning_ anything, never voicing their deep painful desire for the truth. It was enough to simply be there, to exist as a crutch made not of anger armor but something akin to trust.

Sarah hated depending on it, or wanted so badly to walk without it that she rejected Felix’s love time and time again, running, never being still. She still turned the word, the concept of _Mother_ over and over within her. As she grew she felt more and more, and as such buried the questions, the need, deeper and deeper.

        She thinks back now, _later_ , thinks that maybe her anger was justified, yet she regrets the cost of preserving it. She twists her logic, breaks it into a crystalline form from which she can view any angle.

 _Mother_ gave her this armor, this cage. _Mother_ trapped her within herself so deep Sarah is still unsure, even after years and years, that she has escaped. _Mother_ wanted the best for her, _Mother_ wanted to save her. And she cracks her mind, cracks it into two mirror fragments. _“Love me. Tell me you love me, tell me why, love me, please please love me, I love you so much can’t you see?”_ She shudders, _“I hate you, you broke me, I’m broken broken broken, don’t tell me why let me rip it out of your heart and soul, let me show you how much you hurt me let me show you.”_

        Now Sarah knows better, knows that the problems will wait however long it takes you to get tired of running, however long until your lungs rip apart and your heart’s facade crumbles. 

        She didn’t know  _then_ . 

        She thought that running would save her, thought that it was her environment that made her toxic, didn’t know that the poison dripped from her soul. And so she ran, ran over and over again, stretching her fragile bridge of trust until she broke it off entirely and Felix was left holding it, alone. And she hated herself. Hated herself with the fire she wanted to cut into  _Mother_ with, but she understood more, or thought she did. She hates herself, often, for taking the knife in her side and stabbing it into those she - well ‘love’ is a strong word but it works, maybe.

p>  


        (Maybe.)

        She hates herself for making him feel replaceable, for hurting him like  _Mother_ did to her. But it was so easy, she thinks, she thinks how it was so easy to cut your ties, how it was so easy to leave him to be someone else’s burden. How whatever she could give Felix could never match what he had given to her. How she was a failure, forever, irreparably. Because, after all, she was replaceable, a burden to be left on the side of a dusty road, and Felix deserved so much more.

        She discovered her first pregnancy in the bathroom of a friend of an acquaintance, sobbing over the test result as she threw up whatever poison that had spun her world the night before. She ran again, driving the hate into herself like a knife, a blade of redemption. 

        She stole the identity of the woman with the red dress, a small  _“Sorry”_ escaping her consciousness as she saddled the other woman with the bill. She couldn’t saddle her with the burden though, couldn’t shake this feeling of loss, failure. Was this how  _Mother_ felt? Sarah could not, would not let those thoughts solidify and so she lost herself: pills, drugs, sex. She looks back now, doesn’t regret it, doesn’t regret her _choice_ , but understands. Understands more because of the _later_ , the time that has passed, thinking time, time to  _stop_ for once and try to understand. She understands  _Mother’s_ pain so much more now, yet Sarah cannot yet let go of her armor. 

        Not yet. 

        She doesn’t know how to exist without it.

        She’s worked hard to repair her broken bridge, though she’d never admit it to anyone. Felix knows though, whenever she calls him in the middle of the night, whenever she comes crashing into his loft at ungodly hours.  She’s worked so, so hard, struggling under the burdens that are always waiting for her. 

        Every day, hour, minute, second, she thinks how easy it would be to simply leave, to start anew. She longs for a world in which she can shed her armor, shed this ghost of  _ Mother _ and build herself a new self free from the denizens of her past.

But those denizens always come back to haunt, always, never ceasing.

        Sometimes she dreams of _Mother_ , she has long since abandoned fantasies but sometimes one comes upon her, unbidden. Fantasies of _Mother’s_ love, fantasies of life without her anger armor. Sarah wonders - for it is now long enough _after_ that those thoughts don’t feel like a shot of poison - if she would be the same without her past and if that stranger is someone she would want to be. She aches for a life without, yet people, people keep her rounded, keep her from flying away.

        Sarah learned about Kira four months after fleeing the cabin, money gone, spent on coke and alcohol. She couldn’t do it again, she had to prove. 

        Prove to herself that she could stay, be for someone. 

        Felix, well, Felix had seen too much of her failure to grant her the redemption she needs and so she continued. So she became  _Mother_ . And she failed again. 

        Time and time again, even when granted every opportunity. Time and time again she proved her failure, her replaceability, her broken soul. Her soul that stitched itself together so slowly that now,  _later_ , she still had to stop when she feels the emptiness, it feels so light now without the poison  _drip drip drip_ . She was a failure to Kira, to Felix, _“_ _but”_ , and here’s the crazy part, the whispering voice echos in the back of her mind, _“_ _but you are still alive, you still have a chance. Don’t give up on the life you always wanted. The fantasy is right in front of you, and you can’t give up until you breathe you very last breath._ _”_

        The voice becomes louder with each passing week, month, year, until Sarah can’t take a step without it shredding through her consciousness. She sits in coffee shops, her once steady hands shaking so her tea cup rattles on the dish, she walks through dark alley ways, her formerly keen senses dimed to all but the shouting within her. She walks, and thinks less and less about what she used to: sex, drugs, food, sleep. She turns her once rejected fantasies over and over, over and over. She forgets the world outside her mind, paying attention only to the screams of guilt within her.  _“No,”_ the voices whisper, _“Possibility. Hope.”_

It consumes her, until one day she wakes up in a park with one directive in mind and no memory of how she got there.

        Only the memory of a need. She returns to the house on a rainy tuesday, the lights all dark.

        Except one. She knows that room, she helped pick out paint and bedding once, so long ago. She lingers in the shadows, fear clenching her heart, the voices, at last, silent. They seem to be taunting her, when she runs they gode her back, when needs the affirmation they stay silent. The tree grows crooked and crawling, and she remembers long ago, even longer ago, trying to climb it and yelling in pain as the too weak, too young branch broke below her. But the tree is strong now, and Sarah laughs. The tree has grown strong and tall, yet can it support the weight of her sorrow? And then, with one last final push the voices whisper softly, lovingly, _“Go”_.

        Sarah climbs swiftly, silently, and without pause raps lightly on the window pane. Kira is smiling as she pulls the curtain.

        “I knew you would come”

\----------------------------------------------

        Sarah sits on the couch, Kira seated between her and Felix. The warmth of the home has furrowed itself into her marrow, here to stay.

        This isn’t her fantasy, not exactly (It’s better). She’s missed so many years, so many memories, but she’s okay with that. She’s okay with that because she can be the  _Mother_ she never had. 

        She failed and failed and failed again but she forgot, in the mess and the pain that she would forgive  _Mother_ of anything, that in the back of her soul was buried the willingness and unrequited love strong enough to forgive the greatest of transgressions. 

        And so she sits, sits and laughs with the people she loves. She loves from the pit of her being and without compromise, because she knows they do the same for her. They are all broken, in a way, but none are irreparable. The broken mend each other and with each passing day, year, decade their love grows stronger, their scars fainter.

        With each breath comes a new beginning.


End file.
